Microhexura idahoana care and where to find

hecklad

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I have recently become very interested in the 2 microhexura species and wish to observe them. Keeping montivaga is clearly not ever going to happen and would be highly illegal even if it did, so I'm looking to find a way to get 2 or 3 idahoanas. If I manage to get some, what would be their care requirements? Obv they would need things like springtails to feed on, but do they require very high humidity and cool temps like montivaga does?

I am also very interested in hexura and megahexura species as well
 
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aaarg

Arachnoknight
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i don't know what it's like where idahoana lives but if it's anything like where montivaga lives, i would... really not want to attempt to replicate that habitat at home.
good luck!
 

hecklad

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i don't know what it's like where idahoana lives but if it's anything like where montivaga lives, i would... really not want to attempt to replicate that habitat at home.
good luck!
I've done some more reading and I don't imagine it would be that difficult. I have a room that stays about 60° year round in my house. With that temp and at or close to 90% humidity, I think they would do fine, I could easily be wrong though. I would invest in an automated fog machine for the enclosures to help maintain the needed humidity. The big issue that I can see might be emulation of the seasons. I don't know if the really cold winters would be essential to their life cycle (as I would plan to breed them)


Thanks for responding btw
 

Liquifin

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Almost all of the Microhexura species are very hard or impossible to raise in captivity. Microhexura are very specific in terms of how they live due to their small sizes and small lifestyles. @hecklad our state doesn't have the idahoana species, but we have the Microhexura montivaga, which is an endangered species that is suffering habitat lost because of the Adelges piceae which is a micro-organism that is a invasive species from Europe that is destroying it's habitat of the fraser fir moss that the M. montivaga lives on. Arachnologists are always trying to find them, but it gets harder with every passing year. Even now, arachnologists are still studying and trying to save them. I'm pretty certain both Microhexura species in the entire genus is protected.
 

hecklad

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Almost all of the Microhexura species are very hard or impossible to raise in captivity. Microhexura are very specific in terms of how they live due to their small sizes and small lifestyles. @hecklad our state doesn't have the idahoana species, but we have the Microhexura montivaga, which is an endangered species that is suffering habitat lost because of the Adelges piceae which is a micro-organism that is a invasive species from Europe that is destroying it's habitat of the fraser fir moss that the M. montivaga lives on. Arachnologists are always trying to find them, but it gets harder with every passing year. Even now, arachnologists are still studying and trying to save them. I'm pretty certain both Microhexura species in the entire genus is protected.
I understand about montivaga. I couldn't find anything about idahoana being protected/endangered though, and it is said to be widespread throughout its range. I actually just spoke with Peter the bugs in cyberspace guy and he actually used to sell them to researchers, according to him they are easy to keep as well as communal (in a loose sense of the term). My end goal is to basically experiment with idahoana and eventually use that as a basis for cultivating a captive population of montivaga for reinroduction, even if it is very difficult. And to be honest I don't think that it would be too dificult as long as a stable enviornment was provided because the lack of stability is what is causing them to decline, the right parameters might be hard to get right at first, but once you got that and could keep it there, I would think the spiders would do well. That said, I would not be surprised if scientists have already tried it, but I'm just assuming they haven't as nowhere in all the stuff I've read about them has mentioned anything like it.
 

aaarg

Arachnoknight
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montivaga's range is limited to a handful of mountain peaks that are seeing noticeable pressure from climate change as well as the invasive and destructive adelgids etc. there won't be a place to reintroduce them soon.
 

hecklad

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montivaga's range is limited to a handful of mountain peaks that are seeing noticeable pressure from climate change as well as the invasive and destructive adelgids etc. there won't be a place to reintroduce them soon.
If reintroduction becomes impossible, keeping a captive population couldn't hurt anything. There are currently initiatives to replant the forest and treat trees for the balsam woolly adelgid, which although it may take some time, seems be reasonably successful and may eventually restore montivaga's needed microhabitat and extent it's range. Although it is highly possible that they will die out in the wild before the restoration is complete, hence why I think a captive breeding initiative should be taken. If captive breeding is successful, but they go extinct in the wild, it may be possible to reintroduce them once the forest is stable again.
 

hecklad

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So I know this thread has kind of veered off the topic of idahoana but I found this pdf of a study done in 1985 (I think) where montivaga was successfully bred in a lab with an extremely basic setup. I find it really surprising that there are no recent programs, at least that have been published about, that are doing this. I guess I'll have to send out some emails to see if such a program might currently exist. @Liquifin
 

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aaarg

Arachnoknight
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So I know this thread has kind of veered off the topic of idahoana but I found this pdf of a study done in 1985 (I think) where montivaga was successfully bred in a lab with an extremely basic setup. I find it really surprising that there are no recent programs, at least that have been published about, that are doing this. I guess I'll have to send out some emails to see if such a program might currently exist. @Liquifin
ha, i clicked the link thinking 'this must be fred coyle' and whaddya know...

southern appalachian arachnological legend. <3

he has published numerous in-depth papers about another temperate mygalomorph - antrodiaetus bicolor. those are easy to find, but difficult to capture (i briefly attempted to keep them but didn't have much luck - i feel like they require a pretty steep grade based on where they are in the field). y'know, if US mygals are your thing.
 

hecklad

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ha, i clicked the link thinking 'this must be fred coyle' and whaddya know...

southern appalachian arachnological legend. <3

he has published numerous in-depth papers about another temperate mygalomorph - antrodiaetus bicolor. those are easy to find, but difficult to capture (i briefly attempted to keep them but didn't have much luck - i feel like they require a pretty steep grade based on where they are in the field). y'know, if US mygals are your thing.
Do you mean unicolor? I actually found one while looking for montivaga last time I was in the mountains, and because it was so small I got really excited and mistook it for montivaga. The macro photos quickly showed the difference though. They are a pretty cool little spider, I'll definitely read what Coyle has about them
 
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